News from PARWCC!
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Inside the 2026 PARWCC Résumé Writers Survey: 86% Say AI Has Improved Their Workflow
PARWCC, in collaboration with Kickresume, surveyed 152 résumé professionals to understand how client behavior, market conditions, and AI are reshaping the work members are doing in 2026.
The results offer a clear view of where the profession stands today—and where the most strategic opportunities lie for writers and coaches looking to grow their practice.
What stands out is the breadth of change. Clients are arriving with more AI-generated material than ever, but also with less understanding of how résumés actually work. Expectations are climbing, certain industries are placing real strain on candidates, and the writers absorbing all of it are increasingly being asked to do more than draft documents—they’re advising, educating, and elevating.
Here’s what members reported, and what it means for your practice.
Most Clients Arrive Less Informed Than They Realize
When asked how informed their clients are about how résumés are created and optimized, members painted a clear picture: most arrive with significant gaps in understanding.
Nearly half of all clients (46%) fall on the confused side of the spectrum, while only 39% arrive informed. Just 8% qualify as very informed—meaning, in practice, that the overwhelming majority of clients need education before they need execution.
Clients who do not understand how résumés are built, scanned, or evaluated are clients who cannot accurately judge the quality of the work they receive—or articulate what they actually need. They tend to ask for the wrong things, push back on the right things, and underestimate the strategy behind effective documents.
For certified professionals, this is an invitation to lead. Members who position themselves as educators—walking clients through ATS behavior, modern hiring expectations, and the realities of AI screening—shift the relationship from transactional to strategic. They become trusted advisors rather than service providers, which is exactly the positioning that supports premium pricing, stronger client retention, and clearer scope agreements.
The takeaway for your practice: assume your client knows less than they suggest. Build clarity into your intake, your first consultation, and your early deliverables. The clients who understand what you are doing—and why—are also the clients who value it most.
Client Expectations and Turnaround Times Are Climbing
The shift in client understanding is matched by a shift in their demands. When asked whether client expectations and turnaround times for résumé content had changed over the past year, half the industry reported a noticeable increase.
Half of all members (50%) report that client expectations have risen in the past twelve months, with 17% calling the increase significant. Only 11% report any decrease. The remaining 39% see no change—a stable baseline, but one that is increasingly the exception rather than the rule.
There are a few reasons this is happening. AI tools have raised the floor of what a “polished” résumé looks like, and clients now assume that strong wording and clean structure should arrive faster. The job market has tightened in several sectors, so candidates feel more urgency to get materials moving. And the wave of self-service AI résumé tools has shifted what clients think of as a reasonable turnaround for professional work.
The result is that members are doing more in less time, and often without a matching change in scope or pricing. That kind of pressure adds up. Hours quietly stretch, margins quietly shrink, and the relationship with the client can start to feel less like a partnership and more like a delivery service.
The takeaway for your practice: this is a good moment to revisit the basics. A clear scope of work, an honest turnaround window set at the start, and pricing that reflects what you actually deliver—judgment, strategy, expertise—rather than just the document itself. Certified members are especially well placed to charge for that, because the value of the work is something they can speak to with credibility.
AI Has Arrived in Almost Every Client Draft
The pressure on members isn’t only coming from changing expectations. It’s also coming from the documents themselves. AI-generated content is now part of the work most members see every day.
AI-generated content was the trend most members flagged, by a wide margin. More than two thirds (67%) said they are seeing it regularly in client résumés—well ahead of every other trend the survey tested. Longer résumés (32%), personal branding (24%), and creative or infographic formats (18%) all trail behind.
Another question in the survey makes the picture even clearer.
More than half of members (56%) say they see AI-generated drafts from clients always or often. Just as telling, not a single respondent reported never seeing them. AI has moved past the “some clients are trying it” stage. It’s now part of nearly every résumé that crosses a writer’s desk.
For most members, this shifts what the job actually looks like day to day. Building a résumé from a blank page is no longer the default starting point. Instead, members are stepping in further along the process—editing AI-generated material, restoring the candidate’s voice, replacing generic phrasing with real specifics, and tightening structure that the AI didn’t think through. The craft is moving from drafting to elevating.
The takeaway for your practice: this is the territory where certified expertise adds the most value. AI handles a lot of the foundation well—clean structure, professional wording, a workable first draft. What it can’t do on its own is sit across from a client, ask the right questions, and pull out the specifics that make a résumé unmistakably theirs. Members who step in to refine the draft, sharpen the strategy, and bring the candidate’s real story forward are doing exactly the work that turns a good résumé into one that gets interviews. It’s a strong moment to make that value visible—on your website, in your consults, and in how you describe the service you actually provide.
The Issues Members Are Catching Have Changed
When AI began making its way into résumés, many in the industry expected a wave of mechanical errors—typos, broken formatting, factual slips. What members are reporting is something different. The errors AI has eliminated are real, but they’ve been replaced with subtler issues that require a more experienced eye to catch.
Only 8% of members now flag typos and grammar as the most common issue they see. That’s a remarkable shift—for years, basic mechanics topped this list. What’s taken their place is generic, boilerplate phrasing, flagged by nearly two thirds of members (63%). Formatting and structure issues follow at 43%, exaggerated or inaccurate information at 36%, and AI-related inconsistencies—things like tense shifts, mismatched tones, or claims that don’t quite fit together—at 32%.
The exaggeration finding deserves a closer look on its own.
More than half of members (51%) say clients are more likely to exaggerate their achievements than they were a year ago, with 18% saying clients are much more likely. Only 2% say the opposite.
For most members, exaggeration isn’t a new problem. What’s changed is how it shows up. When clients arrive with AI-assisted drafts, the inflated claims often look more credible than they used to—better wording, more confident structure, fewer of the obvious signals that used to give a stretch away. The result is that members are reading more carefully than before, watching for the small gaps between what a bullet point says and what a candidate can actually defend in an interview.
The takeaway for your practice: this is where the experienced eye earns its keep. Members are doing the work that requires judgment—looking at a bullet point and asking whether the claim holds up, whether the achievement is real, and whether a recruiter following up would find the substance behind the wording. That’s a useful thing to be able to articulate to clients, especially the ones who arrive expecting their first draft is already most of the way there.
Where Placement Is Hardest Right Now
Beyond the documents themselves, the survey asked members about the markets their clients are trying to enter. The picture is uneven, but one sector stands out from the rest by a wide margin.
Tech and IT are in a category of their own. Nearly two thirds of members (65%) said this is one of the hardest sectors for client placement right now—more than double the next-ranked industry, finance and banking (28%). Education (16%), healthcare (12%), manufacturing (11%), and retail and hospitality (11%) all trail well behind.
The tech finding will be familiar to anyone who has been following the market over the past two years. Mass layoffs, hiring freezes, and the absorption of certain roles by AI tooling have all combined to make the sector—long considered one of the most candidate-friendly markets—significantly tighter. Members are seeing experienced engineers, product managers, and tech adjacent professionals competing for far fewer openings than they would have a few years ago.
The 20% who selected “Other” point to a broader pattern. Write-in responses repeatedly named administration and customer service roles, along with marketing, creative, and design fields—graphic designers, copywriters, and translators came up especially often. Arts and cultural institutions appeared frequently, with a smaller group flagging automotive, pharma and biotech, NGOs, human services, and clients re-entering the workforce after raising children. Taken together, the write-ins suggest the hiring tightness members are seeing isn’t limited to a few major industries—it’s showing up in pockets across the market.
The takeaway for your practice: members working with clients in these sectors have an opportunity to broaden the conversation. A résumé focused narrowly on one job title or one industry isn’t always the right answer when that industry isn’t hiring. Writers and coaches who can help clients identify adjacent roles, translate their experience into language that travels across sectors, and rethink which kinds of employers might actually need their skill set are doing some of the most valuable work in the current market.
Members Are Working With AI, Not Against It
Across the rest of the survey, the picture of AI’s role in client résumés is largely a picture of pressure—more drafts to refine, more boilerplate to rework, more claims to verify. The final two questions asked something different: how members feel about AI in their own work, and how they see its place in the profession overall.
The answers reframe the whole story.
86% of members say AI has improved their workflow, with 43% calling the improvement significant and another 43% reporting a slight improvement. Only 4% say AI has made their work more challenging. That is a striking level of agreement in any industry, let alone one being actively reshaped by new technology.
The sentiment data tells the same story. Combined, 69% of members view AI favorably—42% as a useful tool, and 27% as an opportunity that enhances their work. Only 16% view it as a threat, and 15% are still deciding.
The 16% who see AI as a threat shouldn’t be dismissed. Resume writers work with different types of clients, in different parts of the market, and not everyone is experiencing AI in the same way. Some are competing directly with self-service AI tools, while others are seeing clients treat AI-generated resumes as a finished product rather than a starting point.
Those concerns reflect a real shift happening in the industry today. At the same time, the broader trend in the survey is clear: most professionals have found ways to incorporate AI into their workflow, and many feel it’s helping rather than hurting their work.
The takeaway for your practice: this is a moment of real opportunity for members willing to adapt. AI handles the parts of the work that benefit from speed and consistency. The parts that benefit from experience—strategic positioning, client relationships, judgment calls about voice, accuracy, and fit—are exactly the areas where certified professionals stand out. Members who continue to invest in those skills, and in their credentials, are going to be the ones clients seek out precisely because they offer something AI on its own cannot.
Final Thoughts
The survey makes one thing clear: the work résumé professionals do is evolving quickly. Clients are arriving with AI-generated drafts, higher expectations, and more urgency — but also with a growing need for guidance, strategy, and clarity.
What members are describing is a profession that is becoming more consultative, not less. As AI handles more of the drafting process, the value of experienced professionals is shifting toward the work technology cannot easily replicate: judgment, positioning, storytelling, and helping clients navigate an increasingly competitive job market.
The opportunity ahead seems clear. Members who combine the efficiency of AI with strong strategic and human skills are likely to be the ones who stand out most in the years ahead.
Methodology Note
The PARWCC Résumé Writers Survey was conducted in collaboration with Kickresume in 2026. A total of 152 résumé professionals participated in the survey. Respondents included résumé writers, career coaches, and other career industry professionals working with job seekers across different industries and experience levels.
Unless otherwise stated, percentages are based on all respondents. Some questions allowed multiple selections, meaning percentages may not total 100%. Figures have been rounded where appropriate.
News from PARWCC!
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
News from PARWCC!
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Retire with Purpose
People often retire with visions of no longer working. They daydream about sitting by a pool or at the beach day after day, golfing, hiking, traveling, hanging out with grandkids, or taking up a beloved hobby. They dream about permanent leisure time. And for some people, this is a reality, and they enjoy it tremendously.
For other people, retirement is a difficult transition; it creates a sense of loss. The sense of purpose and the job one held for decades are gone. Traveling and sitting by the beach are not necessarily comfortable placeholders for the previous job.
Retirement planning may be as important as career search, and it should be a part of career management from day one.
Finances/Math
For retirement planning, simple math includes the following:
- How many years do you want to work?
- At what age do you plan to retire?
- How much money do you need per month/annually to live comfortably?
The answers to these questions enable a coach to help a job seeker to determine the required amount of money to save across their career. If the client wants to retire at 60 (and take Social Security benefits early), needs $50K per year to live, and receives $1,700/month in benefits ($20,400/year), he will need approximately $1.2 million saved to last 42+ years (pulling approximately $29,600 annually from the savings). (*If a person continues to work from 62 to 68 (retirement age), they can only make $24,480 per year (in 2026) without a penalty on the SS income).
The client needs to prepare a basic monthly/annual living budget to identify the target retirement number. The budget should include medical/Medicare/IRMAA, utilities (phone, internet, electric, water), car expenses (gas, insurance, car payment), mortgage/rent/HOA, home insurance, property taxes, food, personal care (haircuts, nails), other (home security systems, bug exterminators, lawn care/snow removal), eating out, gifts, vacations, and any additional monthly expenses. It should be very thorough to prevent surprises after retirement.
Planning to retire also means monitoring the Social Security statement at least annually (https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/statement.html) to understand potential income levels from 62 to 70.
Savings could be in the form of a 401(k), an IRA, a Roth IRA, a money market account, a high-yield savings account, savings bonds, or CDs. Some people are comfortable with investing; others are comfortable with slow-growing savings and CDs.
Emotional/Health – Diane’s Whole-Person Theory
For years (20-40), an employee trains for and focuses on a career path, a career field, a discipline (medicine, law, law enforcement, engineering, teaching, military, human resources, sports, environment, technology, etc.), and/or a specific company or mission (NASA/space; Micron/technology advancements/chips/AI/ML; Ivy League University/teaching/research/learning; NFL/coaching/sports medicine/athlete).
When retirement arrives, these people often feel lost. Their institutional knowledge and purpose are no longer called upon daily. Their ego – the one attached to their profession – is deflated.
They may also experience a “cognitive decline due to ‘mental retirement’, suggesting that the work environment could be more cognitively stimulating than the leisure environment as a retiree. Besides the direct effects of an absence of cognitive activities related to work, retirement may also affect cognitive function indirectly via loss of work-related forms of self-organization, communications and collaborations, which are important factors potentially contributing to the maintenance of cognitive reserve. For example, social networks could be more extensive during employment.” (Effect of retirement on cognitive function: the Whitehall II cohort study, 2017.)
Case Studies
- I spoke with a retired veterinarian this week. He said, “I studied to be a veterinarian for many years; I invested 40 years into the profession, and the last 20 years, I owned my own thriving veterinary hospital with 49 employees. I trained veterinary interns and new veterinarians in surgery, epidemiology, contamination, and disease, as well as in research. I met thousands of pet parents and explained their pet’s illnesses and ailments and the course of action. I spoke at conferences. Now, I am struggling to stay busy.” He is currently helping care for grandchildren, traveling, and remodeling parts of his home. He cannot sit still. When these activities are complete, he will need something else to do and stay busy.
- A newly retired military member with 23 years in (Army/aircraft maintenance/repair/inspection and manager) said, “Job search is daunting. I get no responses back from applications. I know that I am retiring; however, I would like to work another job for 10 or 20 years. Until I secure a new job, I do not know what to do with my hands. It feels very odd right now.”
- A Navy officer said: “I feel like I am walking off the gang plank. I feel completely lost and unsure.”
- A retiree said to me, “I retired, and my friends and former colleagues who were also retired invited me to play golf. So, I met them at the golf club. We played golf, ate lunch, and drank beer. I asked them what was next, and they informed me to meet at the golf club again tomorrow for another round of golf.” He told me there was no way he could play golf every day. So, he started a nonprofit business to help others with job searches.
- A retiree informed me that at age 75, after 50 years of employment in the meat industry, ranging from growing meat, slaughtering, and selling meat to restaurants and stores while meeting all OSHA and USDA/FSIS compliance requirements for plant operations, he felt useless. He was the subject matter expert, and he knew everyone in the industry across the country. With some coaching, he joined a local club that sheltered German Shepherds. He walked the dogs and fed, cared for, and trained them. As a dog lover, he put his passion to work. He met many new people who shared his passion for German Shepherd dogs. He also joined a men’s group that met weekly to ensure regular socialization.
So, what do these retirees do? They experience the job loss grief cycle. And they seek coaching to make the transition into retirement more comfortable. I coach my clients to fill their time with meaningful activities, which may include a new paid job (full- or part-time), a 1099 gig, or community volunteer work. They need to decide whether they require additional income or can live comfortably on their savings and any pension.
Some become entrepreneurs and consultants in their area of expertise. Some return to school for training in new disciplines. Others ask for frequent jury duty. Others get involved in local politics or advocacy. All of these options help maintain cognitive function, decrease depression, and generate motivation.
Keeping retirees happy, cognitively aware, and interested is a specific opportunity for career coaching. They need to plan their finances, clarify their goals and values, identify passions, and explore new career paths and community service volunteer opportunities.
AI Bias In Hiring Is Real: What Mobley Case Means for Interview Coaching
On June 22, 2026, a federal judge ruled that the hiring platform Workday must continue facing discrimination claims that its AI-powered HR software unlawfully rejected job applicants.
That means tens of thousands of job seekers who were rejected by companies using Workday’s tools may try to join the case. It also means that other states and courts are likely to look at this decision when they deal with discrimination complaints about AI hiring systems in the future.
Derek Mobley is a Black man over the age of 40 with a disability who applied to more than 150 positions at companies using Workday’s AI-powered hiring platform. He got a quick rejection every time. So fast, it seemed impossible that there was enough time between his application and rejection for human review. In February 2023, he filed a class action lawsuit that has become one of the most closely watched employment discrimination cases in the country.
If you coach job seekers, this case belongs in your awareness. Here is what it is, why it matters, and how it should shape the way we prepare clients for interviews.
The Mobley Case Explained
Workday is one of the most widely deployed HR technology platforms in the country. Its AI feature called Candidate Skills Match scores and ranks applicants before a recruiter ever sees them. Mobley’s lawsuit argues the system discriminates against people who are Black, over 40, or living with a disability, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
What made this case landmark was a 2024 federal court ruling that Workday itself, the software vendor, could be held liable as an agent of its employer clients. That had never happened before. Software companies can now face legal consequences for discriminatory algorithms they build and sell.
What comes next is deep digging into how Workday’s AI treats real applicants, more job seekers joining the case, and employers rethinking how much they will choose to rely on “black box” hiring tools.
Is AI Bias in Hiring Real?
The Mobley case is the visible legal tip of iceberg that is AI bias in hiring. For as long as AI screening tools have been used in hiring, there have been complaints that those tools demonstrate bias against protected classes of job seekers. In 2019, civil-rights advocates filed a high-profile FTC complaint against HireVue, claiming its use of Affectiva’s facial expression analysis in job interviews could discriminate against people with disabilities. In response, the company discontinued using that particular technology. (It is worth noting, however, that other AI interview platforms continue to incorporate that technology.) Similarly, CVS settled a case in 2024 after its AI video interviews allegedly rated candidates’ facial expressions for “employability”.
And though companies may claim that the AI tools they use in interviewing reduce bias compared with human-led assessments, companies know that AI bias exists. In a 2024 ResumeBuilder survey of 948 business leaders, nearly half of those leaders acknowledged age bias in their AI hiring tools. A full quarter recognized that the tools perpetuate racial bias.
They know that the AI tools they use in hiring demonstrate bias.
Why Interview Coaches Need to Pay Attention
The Mobley case is a resume screening case. But similar AI algorithms are currently used in interviews. Increasingly, companies are employing AI to lead, transcribe, summarize, score and assess recorded job interviews. Many companies use asynchronous AI-scored interviews at the start of the hiring funnel to validate application materials – the resumes, cover letters, and work samples that are often themselves generated by AI.
AI interview platforms may analyze vocal tone, word choice, response structure, and content – and then generate a transcript, summary, or report about the candidate’s suitability for the role. A human may or may not ever watch the recording. Some companies use AI as a silent co-pilot during human-led virtual interviews. An AI algorithm is present during human-led interviews, generating transcripts, summaries and scores in real time – even providing interviewers with feedback on what questions to ask next.
The research on what these AI systems actually measure to generate their assessments is troubling. A 2025 University of Melbourne study found that AI hiring tools struggled to accurately evaluate candidates with speech disabilities or non-native accents. And in March 2025, the ACLU filed a complaint against Intuit and its AI video interview vendor on behalf of an Indigenous, deaf applicant whose video response was analyzed for active listening skills.
You read that right. AI scored a deaf woman on active listening.
And here is the crux of why this is so problematic: A November 2025 University of Washington study found that human decision-makers who received AI-generated recommendations tended to mirror and amplify those biases rather than correct for them. The bias does not stay in the algorithm. It infects the product it generates and influences the people who use that product to make hiring decisions.
What This Means for How We Coach
Very few states have laws that require a candidate’s consent to use AI during a job interview. Even fewer states require companies to disclose that AI is being used to assess a candidate’s interview responses. Our clients may not even realize that their interview is being scored by AI. Clients need to be prepared for the possibility that AI is in every interview space. They have to know how perform well for the algorithm while they are also creating authentic connection with the human.
First, help clients understand that the first assessor may not be human. Especially with large employers using platforms like Workday, the initial screening of a resume or a recorded video response may be entirely automated. This is not meant to alarm them. It is meant to help them prepare for who, or what, is in the room.
Second, correct a coaching myth that has been circulating: modern AI interview platforms do not work by matching exact keywords. They use natural language processing sophisticated enough to understand conceptual meaning. HireVue states explicitly on its website that there are no magic keywords to trick the system, because the NLP is reading for competency, depth, and substance, not specific phrases. What this means for your clients is more interesting than keyword-stuffing advice: vague, generic answers fail with these systems for the same reason they fail with a sharp human interviewer. The AI is looking for evidence, not vocabulary.
Third, structure matters. AI assessment platforms reward responses that have a clear logical arc: context, action, outcome. That through-line is what the system can parse and score. Candidates must deliver a structured answer, but a rigid STAR-formatted answer is not necessary to satisfy the algorithm. Any response that is specific, grounded in a real example, and moves clearly from situation through action to a defined result gives the system what it is looking for. How that is organized is less important than whether all the elements are there.
Fourth, name the equity issue when it is relevant. Candidates with non-native accents, speech disabilities, or other characteristics that do not fit the narrow profile these systems were trained on face a genuine disadvantage. That is not their failure. It is a documented flaw in the technology, increasingly supported by research and litigation. Where accommodations are available, encourage clients to request them before the interview. Where they are not, help clients practice until their delivery is as clear and confident as it can be, and remind them that these systems are not the final word.
Fifth, encourage clients to track their applications. The Mobley case began with one man noticing something was wrong across dozens of rejections. We are not attorneys, but we can help clients recognize patterns and know that legal protections and resources exist.
The Bigger Picture
Mobley v. Workday is not just a lawsuit. It is a data point confirming what many of us have observed for years: the algorithm is not neutral. It has absorbed the biases of its training data and is now encoding them into millions of hiring decisions at scale.
A parallel case filed in January 2026 against Eightfold AI adds another dimension, alleging the company collected and scored applicant data without consent in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This case may lead to better transparency about how AI is used in hiring, but the process is slow. And the technology is moving fast – your client may have an AI-assessed interview next Tuesday.
The Mobley case may ultimately reshape how AI hiring tools are built and held accountable. That is worth knowing, worth talking about with clients, and worth folding into how we coach.
Sources
Mobley, et al. v. Workday, Inc., Case No. 23-CV-00770 (N.D. Cal.) | Duane Morris Class Action Defense Blog, June 2, 2026 | Electronic Privacy Information Center v. HireVue FTC Complaint, 2019 | SHRM: HireVue Discontinues Facial Analysis Screening, 2021 | University of Washington (2024, 2025) | University of Melbourne (2025) | HireVue AI in Hiring Statement | ACLU Colorado / Intuit HireVue Complaint, March 2025 | Brookings Institution, April 2025 | HR Executive | AI Governance for HR | Smart Eye / Affectiva Acquisition, 2021
August 2026: Why a “Healthy” Labor Market Still Feels Frozen to Job Seekers
The U.S. labor market continues to send mixed signals.
On paper, the economy remains remarkably resilient. Unemployment has held steady near historic norms, layoffs remain relatively low, and employers continue to add jobs each month. Yet career coaches, résumé writers, and recruiters across the country are hearing a very different story from the professionals they serve. Applications are increasing while interviews remain scarce. Hiring processes are stretching from weeks into months. Even highly qualified candidates are finding themselves stalled in prolonged job searches.
The disconnect between economic indicators and candidate experience has become one of the defining characteristics of today’s labor market.
For career professionals, understanding that disconnect is becoming just as important as understanding the data itself.
A Labor Market That Continues to Cool
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employers added approximately 57,000 jobs in June, while the unemployment rate held at 4.2%. Healthcare, social assistance, and professional services continued to generate new positions, while other industries showed signs of slowing. These figures suggest an economy that remains stable, but one that is no longer expanding at the pace seen during the post-pandemic recovery.
The moderation has been gradual rather than abrupt. Employers are still hiring, but they are hiring with considerably more caution than they were even eighteen months ago.
This measured approach is evident not only in payroll growth but also in how organizations are making hiring decisions.
The Hiring Gap
One of the more revealing indicators comes from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). As of May, employers reported approximately 7.6 million open positions, yet only 5.2 million hires were completed during the month.
At first glance, millions of available jobs would appear to present abundant opportunity. Instead, many organizations are leaving positions open longer while extending search timelines, increasing interview rounds, or reassessing workforce needs before making final offers.
This widening gap between job openings and actual hiring helps explain why many candidates describe today’s market as “frozen.”
The opportunities technically exist.
The movement into those opportunities has slowed considerably.
Employers Are Holding Their Talent
Unlike previous economic downturns, today’s labor market is not defined by widespread layoffs. Instead, employers appear reluctant to reduce headcount while remaining equally hesitant to expand it.
Economists have increasingly described the current environment as a “low-hire, low-fire” labor market.
Organizations spent several years recovering from labor shortages and difficult recruiting conditions. Many leaders now recognize the cost of replacing experienced employees and are choosing to retain existing talent whenever possible. At the same time, persistent economic uncertainty—including elevated borrowing costs, cautious consumer spending, and evolving AI investments—has encouraged executives to scrutinize every new hire.
For job seekers, this creates an environment where turnover is limited and new opportunities emerge more slowly than expected.
Why Candidates Feel the Market Is Worse Than the Numbers Suggest
The experience of today’s job seeker cannot be explained by unemployment rates alone.
A position that once attracted 75 applicants may now receive several hundred. Recruiters are managing larger applicant pools, while hiring managers often have the luxury of waiting for candidates who match nearly every qualification.
As a result, many qualified professionals are finding themselves competing against equally qualified peers for a relatively small number of openings.
Longer hiring cycles have become increasingly common. It is no longer unusual for organizations to conduct five or six rounds of interviews before extending an offer, particularly for professional and leadership positions.
For candidates, these extended timelines often create the perception that something is wrong with their search strategy when, in reality, much of the delay reflects employer caution rather than candidate quality.
Implications for Career Professionals
For career coaches and résumé writers, this environment requires a subtle but important shift in approach.
The market no longer rewards volume alone. A strategy built around submitting hundreds of applications is unlikely to generate consistent results when employers have become increasingly selective.
Instead, success depends upon helping clients communicate their value with greater precision.
This includes:
- Positioning clients around a clearly defined professional identity.
- Developing targeted résumés rather than relying on a single generalized document.
- Strengthening LinkedIn profiles to improve recruiter visibility.
- Preparing candidates to articulate measurable business impact during interviews.
- Encouraging networking strategies that prioritize meaningful conversations over transactional outreach.
Equally important is managing client expectations. A longer search does not necessarily indicate weaker qualifications. Today’s labor market simply requires greater patience, sharper positioning, and a more intentional strategy.
Looking Ahead
Few economists expect a dramatic shift in hiring during the second half of 2026. While recession concerns have eased, employers continue to exercise fiscal discipline, and many organizations remain focused on operational efficiency before expanding headcount.
Healthcare, government, education, and selected professional services are expected to remain among the more active hiring sectors, while technology, finance, and corporate support functions continue to experience more measured hiring activity.
For career professionals, the opportunity lies not simply in helping clients compete for available positions, but in helping them understand the realities of a labor market that appears healthy by traditional measures while feeling increasingly competitive on the ground.
The numbers tell one story.
Our clients are living another.
Bridging that gap may be one of the most valuable services career coaches and résumé writers can provide in 2026.
Beyond Resumes and Coaching: The Untapped Value of Position Descriptions
Of course, you use announcements and, if you can get them, position descriptions (PDs) to guide your AI tools to help you write for and coach your clients. Supposedly, announcements and PDs capture what the hiring officials are looking for…except when they don’t.
First, what’s asked for is often shown in “key words.” They’re little more than traits or responsibilities. For example, firms looking to hire sales professionals all want the same core skills: the ability to communicate, to have empathy, be resilient, and negotiate. Of course, product knowledge and foundational IT abilities round out the package.
Now consider these questions. Would any company hire an applicant who didn’t have those skills? Wouldn’t it be universally helpful to provide more details? Some companies try.
As an example, consider resiliency. A company might ask for applicants who have encountered rejection. That’s a very basic start. But suppose the announcement went further:
“Successful candidates can illustrate how they learned from rejection and applied the resulting solutions to increased sales.”
Second, vague standards are just one shortcoming. Another is a product of corporate functions. HR drafts most announcements. They try to discover needs by speaking with supervisors. Sadly, often neither supervisors nor many HR professionals get the training they need.
Please don’t misunderstand. HR staff do vital work, even when the pace of operations doesn’t equip them completely.
My client is a senior emergency actions planner. It’s complex, fast-paced work that demands solutions right now. HR knows as much about the details of what he does, as he knows about US 29 Code, §210, paragraph (a) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 as amended!
As a career professional you have the insights, and often the “big” picture, of the relationships between what companies really need and the value your client brings to those needs. With just a little research, you could write superior position descriptions (PDs) that serve companies, HR professionals, your clients, and grow your practice.
You already know the two vital questions that would define an excellent PD:
- Which visible indicators of an employee’s performance would leadership accept as best practices? Nothing vague will do. The indicators must describe actions and results.
- Which resources must be given to a team member so they can deliver excellence? Resources go beyond time, money, and knowledge. Those might include decision-making authority, the ability to hire and fire, access to key individuals, and the like.
Your work with clients gives you those elements. You’ve documented those beautifully in résumés, LinkedIn profiles, bios, and client posts.
Here are suggested steps to turn that wisdom into more value for each client, exceptional knowledge recruiters too often lack, all while growing revenue for your practice.
Step 1: In which fields are you highly experienced? From which fields do most of your clients come?
Step 2: Choose an announcement or PD that is better than most.
Step 3: Now fold in the answers to the two vital questions you saw above.
To help you, I’ve attached an actual position description I drafted for one of my clients. Watch for the elements that add real value.
How do you “sell” your new PDs? Network with your clients. You have shared their recent experience in struggling with announcements. They can usually tell you about previous jobs whose vague PDs limited their advancement.
After you’ve established a good relationship with the appropriate clients, have them tell you of the obstacles poor PDs presented. Then offer to draft a PD, send it to them, and ask for feedback.
Once they see the value, offer a final version as an investment. If your work gives them an edge in earning raises, bonuses, and promotions the ROI will be obvious. In this example, the PD got my client a promotion. He invested about $1K with me. Even though his new job offered only a $5K raise, that’s a 500% return on his investment!
AI may have cut the number of clients you once served and could depend upon. I’m suggesting you enter a market that is much overlooked. The concept I’ve described above can expand your market share broadly and deeply.
Once your abilities become known, companies may well ask if you have clients they can interview. That becomes a commanding part of your brand: on your website, on LinkedIn, on the posts you write, on the podcasts in which you appear.
It’s very possible you are one of the few professionals who will ever read this article. That’s one more reason to act now.
Questions? Email me any hour of any day or night. I’ll respond promptly.
Position Description Example
Coordinator of Communications
Reporting arrangements
The Coordinator of Communications reports to the Executive Director.
The Coordinator of Communications’ mission statement
The Coordinator of Communications is our team’s “capability multiplier.” Without the Coordinator, virtually every program we build for our members, every report our decision-makers rely upon, and every marketing program we need to grow, might become academic exercises. While rarely the sole author of information, the Coordinator plays a vital role that helps The Association get desired actions or reactions from everyone it seeks to influence.
The Coordinator has four main responsibilities.
Coordinating all external communications including but not limited to Association publications, presentations, websites, blogs, podcasts, and publicity materials. This requires extensive experience in the areas of writing, artificial intelligence, social media, photography, graphic design, and web site management.
Deciding which media we use to communicate is the Coordinator’s second bailiwick. Here the Coordinator helps balance efficiency (cost control) with effectiveness in transmitting ideas to constituents and decision-makers.
Increasing visibility of the Association through external communications. The Coordinator makes certain that what we send outside our organization reflects the power of our brand. A reminder: a brand is not a jingle nor collections of nice-sounding words. They are specific promises of actions that deliver value to those we serve internally and externally.
Ensures integrity and accuracy of information disseminated to membership and the general public is the last, but certainly not the least, of the Coordinator’s responsibilities.
In sum, the Coordinator of Communications must be a team player and a trusted, discrete advisor.
Minimum qualifications to serve as
the Coordinator of Communications
The Coordinator of Communications is a facilitator.
Before the Executive Director interviews candidates, candidates should be told what types of publications the Association produces and the software used. The candidates can then gather samples of previous work to prepare for interviews. Candidates should be told how each interview is formatted: AI or person to person.
The best candidates have demonstrated experience and knowledge in the areas of artificial intelligence, social media, writing, photography, graphic design, and web site management. In addition, they have specific examples to illustrate their abilities in the four responsibilities outlined above.
The purposes of this document
In general, this document describes the tasks for which the Coordinator of Communications is responsible. It is not meant to tell the Coordinator how to do those jobs. Nor does it repeat the specific tasks listed in position descriptions of the Association staff members who may work with the Coordinator routinely. Finally, this position description includes only suggested content of publications, posts, and our web site.
The Executive Director should use this document to help in these ways:
- As a guide when hiring a new Coordinator of Communications,
- To guard against giving the Coordinator of Communications more responsibilities than he or she can handle,
- As a check to be sure the Coordinator of Communications has the resources—including time and access—to meet all responsibilities,
- To add new tasks and remove outdated ones, and
- To help refine the performance evaluation instrument used to reward, counsel, or support firing of the Coordinator of Communications.
The Coordinator of Communications should use this document in these ways:
- To get a quick overview of the tasks for which he or she is responsible,
- As a guide to help set priorities, and
- As a framework against which to record examples of work to help the Executive Director review the Coordinator’s performance.
The Coordinator of Communications is responsible for these tasks
Supports the mission of the association in these ways:
- Coordinate all external communications including, but not limited to these:
- Print and electronic media
- Association publications
- Help recruit members statewide:
- Recommend media to reach potential members.
- Develop partnerships and networking opportunities with other professional organizations and constituents.
- Set up and administer our e-mail, social media, and text systems.
- Maintain our job bank for members.
- Coordinate national scholarships and recognition programs such as Superintendent of the Year, MetLife Principal of the Year, McDonald’s Leader of the Year and the Discover Card Award Scholarships.
- Will adhere to the principle of providing reliable and accurate information.
- Assists in the Association’s legislative efforts.
Supports the Association leadership in these ways:
- Provide annual summary reports to the Executive Director answering these questions (at least):
- How well is our web site performing?
- Decide on, and defend the choice of, statistics used to measure website performance. Typical choices might include these measures:
- Demographic information
- Page views per visitor
- Revenue per click
- Cost per click
- Average click throughs per time period
- Supports the membership in these ways:
- Produces timely publications including, but not limited to, the Association magazine, newsletter, brochures, social media posts, and flyers.
- Coordinates and solicits advertising for magazine and website.
- Establish and maintain a website that is easily found, navigated, and updated.
- Assure website visibility:
- Register with search engines,
- Select and employ search engine optimization tools,
- Establish links with other useful sites.
- Educate our membership, constituencies, and other hiring decision-makers on the website and social media channels and their value to them.
- Work with our staff to determine what information should be made available to which constituency. Likely information on the site might include hypertext to these areas:
- Consultative and training services the Association offers,
- Pending legislation affecting our mission in Alabama,
- The Association’ views on pending legislation,
- Latest trends in our mission area in Alabama,
- A job bank for members.
- The Coordinator of Communications performs other mission-related duties as assigned by the Executive Director.
Signed__________________________________Date:________________________________
Executive Director
Signed__________________________________Date:________________________________
Coordinator of Communications
Emotionally Detached Résumé Writing
Last month, we talked about how résumé writers and attorneys share the ability to convey persuasive messages without all the emotional attachments that clients bring to the situation. The other side of the same coin is worth mentioning as well.
The over-correction for emotionally overattached résumé writing is when the client’s presentation has become so emotionally distant that specificity and humanity disappear, achievements flatten, and the human voice actually evaporates. As a result, the résumé sounds sterile, generic, algorithmic, and AI-generated. Finding that balance point allows the writer to achieve:
- confidence without arrogance
- specificity without oversharing
- professionalism without artificiality
- narrative clarity without emotional leakage
Here are five clues to recognize if your own résumé writing is too emotionally detached:
Flat Functionalism
- Example 1: Responsible for project management activities and stakeholder communication.
- Diagnosis: No energy. No context. No ownership.
- Better: Managed cross-functional projects and communicated timelines across operations and finance teams.
Missing Human Stakes
- Example 2: Administered patient care according to established protocols.
- Diagnosis: Technically accurate. Emotionally dead.
- Better: Delivered patient care in fast-paced acute-care environments while maintaining compliance with treatment protocols.
Executive Sterility
- Example 3: Oversaw organizational operations.
- Diagnosis: This sounds almost anonymous.
- Better: Directed operations across 12 regional facilities during multi-state expansion.
AI-Like Generic Language
- Example 4: Results-driven professional with strong communication and leadership skills.
- Diagnosis: This communicates almost nothing.
- Better: Led 18-member customer support team while reducing escalation rates 22%.
Missing Narrative Energy
- Example 5: Worked with teams to achieve objectives.
- Diagnosis: The reader feels no movement, pressure, or accomplishment.
- Better: Coordinated engineering and procurement teams to complete infrastructure projects ahead of deadline.
The sweet spot will always be a résumé that feels composed, specific, credible, calm, and strategically human as opposed to emotionally raw or professionally anesthetized. Ideally, a strong résumé should sound like someone who understands their value clearly without needing to prove their worth emotionally.
That subtle distinction is one of the defining differences between average and exceptional résumé writing.
One Size Doesn’t Fit All
One of the biggest lies the fashion industry tells consumers is, “one size fits all.” One size does NOT fit all. It’s nice if one size fits most. But a lot of the time it’s more like, “One size fits some.” Trust and believe that I have had many moments in fitting rooms where that “one size fits all” tag and I had some words.
That’s really what we are seeing in the industry now as well! It’s not as simple as, “I need a résumé. I need a coach.” Every job seeker is looking for relatable, reliable help but it’s not ever going to be, ‘one size fits all’ ever again.
Customization has always been a luxury of professional career services, but today it goes far beyond tailoring keywords for an applicant tracking system. It’s about tailoring the experience
I’ve had the privilege of proctoring the Live Coaching with Diane, the Live CIC Cohort, and the Insights webinars and there is a recurring thread among the experts who lead these sessions. It’s listening to your client focusing on your client. Denise Bitler’s Master Series about Navigating Client Pushback is really about asking the questions to find out what your client actually needs and maybe that isn’t what they think they need!
A thing I always admire about successful career professionals is that you are also exceptional observers. You notice the important details – a recurring theme in someone’s work history, a hidden transferable skill, a leadership pattern they hadn’t recognized in themselves. Those observations become the foundation of strategies that AI simply cannot invent because they emerge from genuine human interaction.
When thousands of job seekers use the same prompts to create similar résumés, similar LinkedIn profiles, and similar cover letters, differentiation becomes harder. Generic content is no longer enough. Employers aren’t just looking for polished language; they’re looking for authenticity. WHO are they hiring?
Your work is no longer just about writing better résumés. It’s about uncovering better stories. It isn’t about having the *right* answer for the, “Tell me about yourself” questions. It’s about focusing on individual strengths.
It’s about helping clients articulate accomplishments they forgot, recognize strengths they undervalue, and communicate a professional brand that feels authentic rather than manufactured.
Technology can accelerate our work, improve efficiency, and eliminate repetitive tasks. We should embrace those advantages. But let’s never confuse efficiency with expertise
The professionals who will thrive are those who leverage technology to save time while investing even more deeply in the conversations, coaching, strategy, and personalization that clients cannot get from a chatbot. Having those authentic relationships creates a bespoke experience for your client.
Great coaching and writing isn’t one size fits all – it is customized and personalized!
Burnout. Job Seekers are Mentally Exhausted
Nick Lichtenberg, writing for Fortune says, “The American worker is too mentally drained to even look for a new job. They are burned out and going nowhere.”
He goes on to say, “More than half of U.S. workers – 53%, according to a new Glassdoor poll of over 1,300 professionals – say they have paused their job search entirely to protect their mental health. It’s a figure that captures something economists rarely quantify: the exhaustion tax. The psychic cost of a labor market that demands constant hustle while delivering, for many, almost nothing in return.”
For years, career professionals have encouraged workers to “always be networking,” “keep your resume current,” and “never stop looking for your next opportunity.” Those principles still make sense, but today’s job market has created a troubling new reality. Many workers aren’t failing to conduct a job search because they lack ambition or skill. They’re simply exhausted and mentally stressed out.
Career coaches, resume writers, recruiters, and outplacement consultants are increasingly encountering clients and customers who know they need a change, yet can’t summon the emotional energy to pursue one. They delay updating their resume, avoid LinkedIn, ignore networking invitations, and convince themselves they’ll “start next week.” And next week often becomes next month. Then next year.
The result is a growing population of talented people who feel trapped, not by lack of opportunity or job search skills, but by burnout. Actually it’s beyond burnout, when you consider job seekers are also being affected by a myriad of issues including health, politics and the world condition, finances, social media, kids, affordability and cost of living, and so on. All this in addition to ‘job search.’
Burnout Has Become a Career Barrier
Burnout is no longer just a job seeker wellness issue. It’s a career mobility issue. If the 2026 Glassdoor survey is close to being accurate, with over 50% of job seekers putting their job search on hold to preserve their mental wellbeing, what does this mean for services being offered by employment professionals?
While the majority of employment pros continue to focus their marketing efforts on resume, interviewing, and career coaching services in the new AI Chat-GPT environment, very few have studied, become certified (CEMP), or are even interested in addressing the underlying issue of job seeker procrastination, disengagement, and underachievement: Burnout. Emotional overload.
There has been a subtle but sizable shift from just a few years ago, when “The Great Resignation” was characterized by confident employees actively seeking better opportunities. Today’s workforce feels very different. Actually, today’s whole world feels very different. Because it is.
The “Low-Hire, Low-Fire” Economy Changes Everything
The current labor market presents a frustrating conundrum. Unemployment remains relatively stable, yet hiring has slowed considerably. Economists have described today’s environment as a “low-hire, low-fire” economy. Companies aren’t conducting mass layoffs, but they also aren’t hiring aggressively.
And workers seeking other opportunities, as well as job seekers, understand this reality. They hear and read stories about candidates submitting hundreds of applications without receiving interviews. Confused and/or seeking advice, when they search for career pros on social media, they are simply overwhelmed by the confusing, conflicting, and often fear-driven content. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, recruiters are being excessively flooded by AI-generated applications, the vast majority are never read. Knowing this, frustration, panic, and burnout accelerate.
Especially when it comes to the silent killer.
Silence
It’s always been around. Job seekers have always known it exists, with many having experienced it. But today, it’s an out-of-control epidemic. The silent treatment.
Job candidates spend hours tailoring résumés, writing customized cover letters, completing online assessments, and participating in multiple interview rounds… only to hear absolutely nothing afterward (Often referred to as ‘ghosting’).
Here’s the BIG problem with silence. With resumes, job candidates don’t know:
- If their resumes even made it to the hiring entities.
- If their resumes were actually read by hiring entities.
- If their resumes were competitive.
- If their resumes were not competitive, why not?
In interviewing, silence presents similar damaging questions: Was it me? Was I even competitive? Did I say something wrong?
This alone creates emotions that go far beyond burnout because after enough silence, many job seekers transition from burnout to what psychology calls ‘learned helplessness.’ This is a state where job seekers continuously faces uncontrollable, high-anxiety situations, that they eventually stop trying to seek new opportunities, even when new opportunities for success arise. Or even when desperation intensifies. Burnout leads to a deeply ingrained belief that one’s actions are entirely futile.
Workers Are Staying in Jobs They No Longer Want
Another consequence of burnout is career immobility. Employees remain in organizations where they’re disengaged because changing jobs appears even more stressful than staying put.
Ironically, remaining in an unhealthy environment often worsens burnout. Instead of escaping a toxic workplace, workers adapt to it. Instead of pursuing advancement opportunities, they give up on them. Instead of networking, they withdraw. Instead of living optimally, they settle for less than they deserve.
This creates a dangerous cycle where career dissatisfaction, and the job search process itself, feeds emotional exhaustion. Which then, prevents the very actions needed to improve the situation.
The Numbers Paint a Sobering Picture
Recent workplace research reinforces what career professionals are witnessing every day. Robert Half found that 36% of U.S. professionals report feeling burned out at work, while one-third say they’re more burned out than they were a year earlier. Heavy workloads, lack of recognition, and limited career growth remain the leading contributors. Not to mention the pain, fear, and/or discomfort associated with the idea of a job search.
In another survey I came across, conducted by MyPerfectResume, they reported that 63% of workers experience burnout multiple times each week, with many emotionally withdrawing from work while remaining employed.
Slow Down, You Move Too Fast
Most job seekers don’t need super advanced employment strategies. They need permission to go over The 59th Street Bridge, and move more slowly. Rather than overwhelming clients with extensive branding and marketing strategies, today’s successful career practitioners are breaking the process into simplified and manageable steps:
- Discuss what personal/external factors might hinder success – and plan around that.
- Break activities down (like the resume) into simple-to-complete tasks and time lines.
- Reach out to one networking contact today.
- Apply selectively instead of indiscriminately.
- Schedule recovery and ‘fun’ time alongside job-search activities.
- Discuss other people who could become members of a job search team of advisors.
Ironically, doing less often leads to accomplishing more. Career coach Emily Worden (a PARWCC CPCC) recently advised job seekers to limit their daily search to focused, structured blocks rather than treating the process as a full-time job. Her approach emphasizes quality applications, networking, and maintaining personal well-being to reduce burnout.
Career Success Requires Emotional Energy
Career development has always been viewed through the lens of strategy – better resumes, better interviewing, better networking, better branding, and better attitude. But perhaps the most overlooked career asset today is helping job seekers build better emotional capacity.
Burned-out professionals struggle to write compelling accomplishments because they’re mentally depleted. They postpone networking because every interaction feels draining. They avoid interviews because they no longer believe anything will change. This isn’t a skills problem. It’s an energy problem.
The Opportunity for Career Coaches
Paradoxically, this challenging environment creates an important opportunity for career professionals. Clients increasingly need someone who understands both career strategy and emotional resilience. Yes, the resume still matters. LinkedIn optimization still matters. Interview coaching still matters.
But helping job seekers find ‘space’ in their minds and then in their daily schedules, to defeat burnout and rebuild confidence, may matter even more.
It’s been my experience that often, the greatest value a coach provides isn’t rewriting a resume or practicing mock interviews. It’s helping someone believe they’re still worth hiring.
Final Thoughts
For career professionals, recognizing this ‘burnout reality,’ changes how you will serve your clients moving forward. You are no longer helping people navigate just a competitive labor market, you’re helping them navigate emotional exhaustion, repeated rejection, employer silence, and uncertainty about the future.
Tomorrow’s top career practitioners will be those who address both sides of the equation – building stronger job-search strategies, while helping clients preserve the mental energy and control required to avoid burnout.
Please, Stop Helping Me
Dear reader, you’re clearly a savvy internet user if you’re able to navigate the web well enough to be reading this column. So you’ve probably noticed how you can’t go to a single website today without being prompted to take a survey about your experience or answer questions about the type of content you’d like to see.
It’s become common knowledge that anyone you give your email to will send you solicitations asking for help improving their services or begging you for feedback. I’m a regular user of several business management software platforms, and they’ve all drastically increased the presence of pop-ups to recommend additional services and take my temperature on the tools that I already use.
Everybody is trying to help me by improving my experience. And it’s exhausting. At this point, I spend more time in a day turning off the help balloon in the solicitous platform than I do accomplishing tasks. If I have to access five platforms all day, I can be confident that all five will have “new” information to give me and more than likely several questions to ask.
I get it — a lot of people are trying to improve user experience. Swathes of the job market are dedicated to drip campaigns and collecting feedback from users. And it’s nice to think that we can all give just a little bit of information to improve the tools and services we use every day.
But it’s not just a little attention. It may be a few simple questions for one provider, sure, but when you’re receiving these prompts from ten, twenty, thirty businesses a day, suddenly the time investment isn’t as insignificant as these companies seem to suppose. When everyone wants just a little, I’m disincentivized to give anyone anything at all.
Today’s lesson is one in customer experience and marketing. If you are in a decision-making position over how often your organization solicits customers for feedback, be judicious. There is a lot of noise out there, and adding to the din for a frivolous reason isn’t going to earn you any goodwill from your user base.
If you simply must prompt users about an exciting new (or new to them) feature, stick to one singular, simple recommendation. One retailer that I particularly like, whose name rhymes with Mommy Llama, reaches out to me three times one day to alert me to new offerings and query me for comments on an item that I purchased a decade ago.
I know that we all crave data. Feedback and information can go a long way in helping improve your offerings. But it helps to move with a light touch. Here’s a case study for my argument: a business I’ve been working with wanted a cross section understanding of marketing spend. They solicited input from a bunch of divisions, allowing respondents to group their answers into one of a handful of categories.
While this got them a lot of data, they decided that it would be more useful to have more granular information. Six buckets grew to thirty-two. With six they had a crude understanding of where the marketing budget went. With thirty-two, they had absolutely no idea. Perhaps predictably, people didn’t want to spend time dividing down this information into the smallest possible subsections, so they lumped it all into one bucket to make the task go away.
By trying to get more, they gave themselves substantially less. This doesn’t mean you should throw up your hands and lament how you can never collect data, but it’s a sign to be cautious that you aren’t generating the mindless noise that constantly drones throughout the internet.
You already have a relationship with your customers and clients. Don’t abuse it. Nurture that connection, give more than you get, and be very careful with the mindset that you’re helping your customers when you solicit their opinions.